An informative 8 minute video from the BBC’s The One Show on the recovery and release of The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear in October 2013. The segment features the First Doctor’s companion Peter Purves and the hunt for missing episodes. Of particular interest is the interview with Graham Strong concerning his collection of audio tapes of missing episodes.
Writing the Doctor Who Mind Robber’s 50th Anniversary Countdown is reminiscent of Griffin the Chef’s sublime appearance in Episode 3 of the recently recovered and released Second Doctor serial, The Enemy of the World. That episode, as you may recall, had been the only part of the six part serial to have been previously held in the BBC Archives. Released as part of the triple DVD set, Lost in Time, Episode 3 had caused many a fan to discount Enemy. Forever being one to differ, my review of Enemy prior to the recovery was nonetheless positive. Australian Reg Lye’s portrayal of the laconic Griff was the highlight of the episode.
Griff the Chef hides under the table during a tense moment in The Enemy of the World, Episode 3
Griff is seen to complain to Victoria about his life as the evil Salamander’s chef. His mother, he stated, had wanted him to be a dustman and that night’s dinner was sure to be “a national disaster”. Having agreed to be of assistance, Griff went on to say to Victoria,
Well sit down and write out the menus. First course interrupted by bomb explosion. Second course affected by earthquakes. Third course ruined by interference in the kitchen. I’m going out for a walk. It’ll probably rain.
Reg Lye was phenomenal as the chef, Griffin in The Enemy of the World
Trying to keep up with this Countdown, and also sew the Second and Fourth Doctor Cosplay outfits discussed on Days 16 and 17, leaves me in a Griff type predicament. First course interrupted by The Day of the Doctor sneak peak. Second course affected by leaked The Day of the Doctor trailer. Third course ruined by interference from #SaveTheDay hastag on Twitter. Just over a fortnight out from the 50th Anniversary and any half interested fan could spend almost every waking hour of the day following the latest Doctor Who news.
Doctor Who retro posters courtesy of Radio Times designer Stuart Manning – http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-10-11/doctor-who-missing-episodes-retro-poster-designs
Keep watching the Doctor Who Mind Robber as we continue to report on all the anniversary news and hopefully even get some Cosplay sewing done!
Vivien Fleming
©Vivien Fleming, 2013.
Even with the recent recovery of nine missing episodes from The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear, Patrick Troughton’s tenure as the Doctor still has 54 missing episodes, including four serials in which not a single episode is held – The Power of the Daleks, The Highlanders, The Macra Terror and Fury From the Deep. William Hartnell’s Doctor has 44 of his episodes missing, including six serials without a single episode – Marco Polo, Mission to the Unknown, The Myth Makers, The Massacre, The Savages and The Smugglers.
In the absence of so many stories, making an informed choice on the Top 5 serials for the First and the Second Doctors is both difficult and hypothetical. A brilliant soundtrack could mask poor visual representations, whilst a boring audio may hide a visually stunning masterpiece. Without seeing the moving pictures one can never be 100% certain that a story is as good as its reputation. All that being said, here’s the Doctor Who Mind Robber’s humble opinion of the Second Doctor’s Top 5 stories.
Is The Space Pirates really as bad as its reputation? Only the moving pictures can show for sure
The recovery of five episodes and release of all six parts of The Enemy of the World on iTunes recently quickly lead to a reappraisal of this story’s worth. Previously only episode three had been held in the BBC Archives and released on the triple DVD set, Lost in Time. That episode was somewhat unrepresentative of the other five and caused many to underestimate the serial’s true worth.
The Enemy of the World was the only Season 5 story without monsters and not of the “base under siege” genre. Patrick Troughton’s dual role as the Doctor and the evil would-be world dictator, Salamander, allowed him to show another side of his acting skills, notwithstanding the rather dubious Mexican accent. Enemy was also Barry Letts’ Doctor Who debut and heralded the show’s first action scenes involving helicopters and hovercraft. Such adventures would become second nature during the tenure of the Third Doctor.
Patrick Troughton plays the evil would-be world dictator, Salamader, in The Enemy of the World
This will undoubtedly be a controversial choice however it’s one of my personal favourites. Only episodes one and three are held in the BBC Archives. The last story of Ben and Polly’s tenure as companions, The Faceless Ones is set in the ‘present day’ and features excellent location filming at Gatwick Airport in London. Pauline Collins appears as Samantha Briggs, a young woman from Liverpool who is searching for her brother who did not return from a package holiday to Rome. A psychological thriller about identity loss, it was sure to have heavily influenced Mark Gatiss’ 2006 episode, The Idiot’s Lantern.
The Faceless Ones influenced the 2006 story The Idiot’s Lantern
One of the most highly regarded Sixties Dalek stories, The Evil of the Daleks was the first and only serial to be repeated in the UK during that decade. The repeat was written into the script of the Season 5 finale, The Wheel in Space, and the Season 6 premiere, The Dominators. The new companion Zoe was to view the Doctor’s thought patterns, presumably during the season break, and decide whether she wished to join the TARDIS Crew.
Yet another missing story, only episode two of The Evil of the Daleks is currently held in the BBC Archives. The story introduced the Dalek Emperor which was a direct spin off from the Whitaker penned Daleks cartoons in TV Century 21 magazine. The Dalek “human factor” is intriguing and like The Faceless Ones, undoubtedly influenced New Series Doctor Who. Robert Shearman’s Series 1 story, Dalek, has several nods to The Evil of the Daleks, whilst Gareth Roberts’ short novel, I Am a Dalek, revives the “human factor” in more than mere words.
The Evil of the Daleks was the first Doctor Who serial ever repeated and the first and only repeat to be scripted into serials
2. The War Games
Patrick Troughton’s last serial as the Second Doctor, The War Games is a 10 part epic which forever changed the history of Doctor Who. Although the name of his home planet is not yet disclosed, the Doctor is revealed to be a Time Lord. A renegade Time Lord, the War Chief, has given the secrets of time travel to an alien race which seeks to conquer the galaxy. In their quest to build the best fighting force, human soldiers have been transported from Earth to fight a number of simultaneous wars. These discrete battle zones see engagements from the First World War, the American Civil War, Russo-Japanese War, English Civil War, Boar War, Mexican Civil War, Crimean War, Thirty Year War, Peninsula War, and Roman and Greek war zones.
Being unable to return all the War Games participants to their own time and space, the Doctor reluctantly calls in the Time Lords. Having himself been a renegade since stealing a TARDIS and taking to the universe, the Doctor is at last compelled to face justice for breaching the Time Lords’ Non Interference Policy. Jamie and Zoe are returned to their own times, with all but the memories of their first adventure with the Doctor wiped, and the Doctor is sentenced to exile on Earth. His knowledge of the TARDIS’s time travel functions is denied him, and he is forced to change his bodily form. The term “regeneration” has not yet been coined. So ends the monochrome era of Doctor Who and Patrick Troughton’s three year tenure as the Doctor.
Only in the 1960s could you get something as trippy and psychedelic as this
An almost psychedelic trip through the land of fiction, The Mind Robber is just about as good as Doctor Who gets. This five part serial sees the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe caught in the world of children’s fairytales. They encounter Lemuel Gulliver, brilliantly portrayed by Bernard Horsfall, Princess Repunzel, Medusa, a Unicorn and a cast of Who created characters. Far from being what it seems, nothing is reality. Zoe and Jamie are transformed into fictional characters after Jamie had earlier had his physical appearance altered. The TARDIS explodes for the first time and the Doctor and his crew find themselves drifting in space. Zoe shows that being small in stature is in no way detrimental to fighting a 21st Century cartoon superhero, and Repunzel’s hair really is the strongest and most effective way of quickly scaling rocky cliff faces. It’s all brilliant stuff!
The Doctor, Zoe and the re-faced Jamie meet up with wind-up tin toy soldiers in The Mind Robber
Vivien Fleming
©Vivien Fleming, 2013.
The success on iTunes of the recently recovered Troughton era serials, The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear, has conclusively shown that 45 year old monochrome Doctor Who can successfully compete against the best current release TV shows. An article in the UK’s Mirror newspaper states that in the first three days after the release of the two stories 10,000 series pass downloads were sold. Presumably this figure is for sales in the UK only. The article goes on to state that to date there have been 73,000 episode downloads.
The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear have only been released on iTunes in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. Enemy is due for release on DVD in late November and Web is due sometime in the New Year. Rumours continue to surface that Marco Polo may have been recovered and is soon to be released.
Doctor Who retro posters courtesy of Radio Times designer Stuart Manning – http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-10-11/doctor-who-missing-episodes-retro-poster-designs
In the light of Doctor Who’s missing episodes hysteria the Doctor Who Mind Robber today looks at 5 Serials that you’d swap for missing episodes. Even the most rabid of fans acknowledge that the output of Doctor Who has never been consistent. Some stories are brilliant whilst others would have been best left unmade. As 97 episodes are still claimed by the BBC to be missing from their archives, which extant episodes would you willingly ditch for a recovered one?
The Sensorites is the most unloved serial of Season One Doctor Who. In a documentary included in the Special Features of the DVD release comedian Toby Hadoke described the serial in the following way:
The Sensorites. Poor, unloved, The Sensorites. Nestling, lost somewhere, down the back of the fans’ collective sofa. There it lies at number 7 in the first heady year of Doctor Who. It didn’t even have the decency to be wiped so we could all mourn its loss, and imagine how brilliant it must have been. It’s not a story anyone really talks about. We certainly don’t know that much about it …
Little more needs to be said.
A scene from The Sensorites
4. The Ark
Although beautifully directed The Ark has undoubtedly the worst monsters in Classic Series Who, the Monoids. In my review I described the Monoids like this:
Also travelling on the spaceship are an assortment of animals and the Monoids, a peculiar mute race whose most distinctive feature is their one eye. This single eye is in their mouths, or at least what would’ve been their mouths if they had human anatomy. These eyes are actually painted ping pong balls which the actors held in place with their mouths. Now that’s ingenious small budget special effects for you! On the top of their heads is a long Beatles style mop top wig, whilst the rest of their bodies are clothed in green ill fitting garb. They have webbed hands and feet and move slowly.
An unfortunate Monoid in The Ark
The Keys of Marinus is the second of two little regarded serials in Doctor Who’s first season. The six parter was among the more expensive stories to produce as each episode took place in a different location of Marinus. Season 16’s The Key to Time is not dissimilar. Unfortunately the variety of locations makes for a disjointed serial and the chief monsters, the Voord, are what young people today might best describe as “rubbish”. With wet suit clad bodies and swimming flipper feet their most redeeming features were their quite unusual heads.
A Voord with Susan in The Keys of Marinus
In my review of The Space Museum I discussed the DVD extra, Defending the Museum. In it the writer Rob Shearman outlined his devotion to The Space Museum which rests solely upon the assumption that the story is a parody of William Hartnell era Doctor Who episodes. The aggressors, the Moroks, are little more than morons who invade a planet only to turn it into a museum for their past achievements. The rebels are excruciatingly bad. Dressed in black polo neck jumpers, they look like students in a coffee bar. Vicki starts a revolution only because she’s bored and the native Xerons don’t need a great revolutionary, just a locksmith! That The Space Museum can only be appreciated if it’s considered a parody says much for the low esteem in which it’s generally held. The serial is unlikely to be missed.
The Doctor hiding inside the casing of a Dalek exhibit is one of the best parts of The Space Museum
I was so utterly bored by The Web Planet that I couldn’t even find the enthusiasm to review it. The best parts of the story are William Hartnell’s “Billy Fluffs” and when an extra ran slap bang into a camera and it wasn’t edited out. This fan made compilation clip, however, is brilliant.
Vivien Fleming
©Vivien Fleming, 2013.
The recently recovered missing serial The Enemy of the World is set for DVD release in Australia and New Zealand on 27 November 2013. Although both The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear were released on iTunes Australia on 11 October, neither of the serials are available on iTunes in New Zealand. Like Australia, New Zealand has purchased and aired Doctor Who since the very first story, An Unearthly Child, almost 50 years ago. The BBC’s snub of New Zealand fans is deplorable. As The Web of Fear is not due for DVD release until sometime in the new year, New Zealanders still have a long wait to see the Brigadier’s debut.
Details on what, if any, special features are included in The Enemy of the World have yet to be released. The latest issue of the Doctor Who Magazine states that “Enemy is due to be released on DVD in November, along with special features yet to be confirmed”. The British Board of Film Classification appears not to have approved any special features to date. A basic release without special features has become known in fandom as a “vanilla” release.
The current edition of the Doctor Who Magazine with The Enemy of the World cover. This edition of DWM is also available with a special edition cover featuring The Web of Fear
Enemy is currently available for pre-order at both the BBC Doctor Who online store and the ABC Shop for $19.95. As both retailers ordinarily sell new release Doctor Who classic series DVDs for $29.95 one wonders if the discounted price reflects a “vanilla” release. Alternatively, the reduced price may be based upon the assumption that purchasers have previously bought the release for $14.99 on iTunes. Only time will tell!
A Radio Times produced retro poster for The Enemy of the World
Vivien Fleming
©Vivien Fleming, 2013.
In an article published in the Radio Times the writer of An Adventure in Space and Time, Mark Gatiss, has indicated that “moments of lost episodes ,.. like Marco Polo” have been recreated for the drama. The 90 minute production, which dramatizes the origins of Doctor Who, will be aired in November as part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations. Stars of the show include David Bradley as William Hartnell (the First Doctor), Brian Cox as Sydney Newman (Doctor Who co-creator), and Jessica Raine as Verity Lambert (first producer). The two surviving members of the original cast of Doctor Who, William Russell (Ian Chesterton) and Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman) appear in small cameo roles as “Harry” and “Joyce”. Mark Eden, who played Marco Polo in the missing serial of the same name, appears in the drama as Donald Baverstock, the Controller of BBC One.
Mark Eden as Marco Polo. Pictured behind him is William Russell as Ian Chesterton. Both Eden and Russell appear in An Adventure in Space and Time
Rumours circulating prior to the announced recovery of The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear earlier this month speculated that Marco Polo was part of a three serial haul. So consistent were the rumours that an acronym circulated amongst fans for this alleged multiple story recovery – MEW (Marco, Enemy, Web).
In our article on 21 October The Doctor Who Mind Robber mused upon the relationship between the revival of the Great Intelligence in Series 7 and the recovery of The Web of Fear, the second (and last) story in which the Intelligence appeared. In our humble opinion it appears that Doctor Who show runner, Steven Moffat, was aware of Web’s recovery and almost certainly resurrected the Intelligence to assist in the BBC’s marketing of the recovered episodes.
The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) with the Great Intelligence (Richard E. Grant) in The Name of the Doctor
Given the precedent set by the Intelligence’s return, together with the long-standing MEW rumours, it’s at least arguable that Gattis’ recreation of elements of Marco Polo is a further example of a BBC missing episode marketing campaign. Should we anticipate an announcement on the return of Marco Polo not long after the broadcast of An Adventure in Space and Time? Let’s wait and see!
In the meantime, check out our gallery of brilliant promotional photographs for An Adventure in Time and Space here.
Radio Times produced retro poster for The Web of Fear
Vivien Fleming
©Vivien Fleming, 2013.
With the momentous missing episodes recovery news of last week The Doctor Who Mind Robber can now celebrate the return of nine episodes. The six part The Enemy of the World is now complete with the recovery of episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. Episode 3 was already in the care of the BBC and was released on the triple DVD set Lost in Time. The Web of Fear, also six episodes long, is now only missing episode 3. Episode 1 had previously been released on Lost in Time and episodes 2, 4, 5 and 6 have been recovered.
In no particular order we now reflect on 5 Reasons to Celebrate the Return of Enemy and Web.
Professor Travis is confronted by Yeti in The Web of Fear
5. THERE ARE NOW ONLY 97 MISSING EPISODES
Since the recovery of Airlock (episode three of Galaxy 4) and episode two of The Underwater Menace there have been 106 missing Doctor Who episodes. The return of the aforementioned episodes in December 2011 were the first recoveries since episode two of The Daleks’ Master Plan (Day of Armageddon) in January 2004. With only three episodes returned in the 21st Century prior to 2013, the haul of nine recently recovered episodes brings to a dozen the episodes found this century.
For the first time the number of missing episodes is in double figures. How long will it be until there are less than 97 missing episodes?
Doctor Who retro posters courtesy of Radio Times designer Stuart Manning – http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-10-11/doctor-who-missing-episodes-retro-poster-designs
4. COLONEL LETHBRIDGE-STEWART IS INTRODUCED
Although Nicholas Courtney appeared as Bret Vyon in The Daleks’ Master Plan, it is in The Web of Fear that his iconic character of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart made its Doctor Who debut. The Doctor Who Mind Robber has waxed lyrical about the promoted Brigadier here and here. Unfortunately, however, it is the very episode in which Lethbridge- Stewart appears for the first time that is missing from The Web of Fear. Episode three is yet to be recovered however it has been very ably reconstructed by the BBC and has been released with the serial’s other five episodes on iTunes.
The then-Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart is first introduced to Doctor Who in The Web of Fear
3. THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD IS THE FIRST COMPLETE SERIAL RECOVERED SINCE 1992
For the first time since the recovery of all four episodes of The Tomb of the Cybermen in 1992 a complete serial, The Enemy of the World, has been returned to the BBC Archives. Long-term fans still recount stories of the joy experienced when Tomb resurfaced in Hong Kong. There’s little doubt that the recent finds will become part of the mythology of Doctor Who.
The Cybermen emerge from their icy tombs in this iconic image from The Tomb of the Cybermen
2. THE YETI
The Yeti have obtained mythical status in the world of Doctor Who despite having appeared in only two serials, The Abominable Snowmen and the Web of Fear. Until the recovery of four of Web’s six episodes only one was held in the BBC Archives. A single episode is all that remains of The Abominable Snowmen. With a reconstruction of the missing third episode of Web and the release of all six episodes on iTunes, fans can experience one of the greatest monsters in 1960s Doctor Who for the first time in 45 years. Now Jon Pertwee’s oft quoted phrase “Yeti on the Loo” may begin to make sense to current era Doctor Who fans.
The Yeti invade the London Underground in The Web of Fear
1. DOCTOR WHO’S FIRST HELICOPTER AND HOVERCRAFT SCENES
Synonymous with the tenure of the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, chase scenes were unheard of during the first two incarnations of the Doctor. Except, of course, for The Enemy of the World. It is in episode one of this story that the first helicopter is seen, together with a hovercraft. A helicopter subsequently made an appearance in the still lost Fury From the Deep, the companion Victoria’s last story. The Enemy of the World was incidentally the first time that the legendary Barry Letts worked on Doctor Who. Letts was the producer of Who during the Third Doctor’s tenure.
The first hovercraft to appear in Doctor Who was in The Enemy of the World
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
MARY PEACH IS ASTRID
Mary Peach as Astrid in The Enemy of the World
SALAMANDER SWEPT INTO THE VORTEX
The Doctor’s evil doppelgänger, Salamander. is swept out into the vortex soon after his face-to-face confrontation with the Doctor in The Enemy of the World
DEBORAH AND JACK WATLING APPEARING TOGETHER
The father and daughter team of Jack and Deborah Watling first appeared together on screen in The Abominable Snowmen. Watling Snr reprised his role of Travers in The Web of Fear
TINA PARKER IS ANNE TRAVERS
Tina Parker played the role of Anne Travers, the daughter of Professor Travers in The Web of Fear. She almost reprised her role in The Invasion
Vivien Fleming
©Vivien Fleming, 2013.
Following the release of the two newly recovered Doctor Who serials on iTunes earlier today, The Enemy of the World is currently charting at number one in the Australian iTunes Top TV Seasons List. The Web of Fear is holding down the second place in front of three seasons of Breaking Bad. Who’d ever have imagined that 45 year old black and white Doctor Who serials would be the hottest sellers on iTunes!
To give viewers a taste of what to expect from the two serials the BBC has released a trailer for each, together with five other short clips. Earlier today The Doctor Who Mind Robber posted the trailers and we now provide for your viewing pleasure two of these clips, one each from The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear.
The Doctor Goes for a Swim – The Enemy of the World
The Doctor reactivates a Yeti Sphere – The Web of Fear
Vivien Fleming
Just when Australian fans of Doctor Who thought they’d been forgotten, the newly recovered Second Doctor serials The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear appeared on the iTunes Australia site. Released at midnight London time (9.00 Qld Time) in the UK and the US, it appeared for several hours that Australian fans would miss out.
The complete six part serial The Enemy of the World is available to purchase for $14.99, whilst The Web of Fear, which is missing one episode but has a reconstruction of episode three in lieu, is offered at the same price. iTunes is the only platform that these long missing stories are presently being offered for sale on. Both stories will be released on DVD in due course.
Frazer Hines (Jamie) and Deborah Watling (Victoria) at the private screening and press conference for The Web of Fear and The Enemy of the World yesterday
Vivien Fleming
Following a private screening of one episode each from The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear at a press conference in London yesterday, the BBC has released a press release officially confirming the recovery of nine previously missing episodes.
The six part The Enemy of the World is now complete with the recovery of episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. Episode 3 was already in the care of the BBC and was released on the triple DVD set Lost in Time. The Web of Fear, also six episodes long, is now only missing episode 3. Episode 1 had previously been released on Lost in Time and episodes 2, 4, 5 and 6 have been recovered.
The BBC’s full press release is as follow:
11 EPISODES FROM THE 1960s, NINE OF WHICH HAVE NOT BEEN SEEN FOR OVER 45 YEARS, WILL LAUNCH EXCLUSIVELY ON ITUNES ON
Friday 11 October
BBC Worldwide is delighted to announce that nine recordings from the 1960s featuring missing episodes of Doctor Who, the world’s longest running sci-fi drama, have been recovered in Nigeria, Africa.
11 Doctor Who episodes were discovered (nine of which were missing) by Phillip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archive, by the tracking records of overseas shipments made by the BBC containing tapes for transmission. BBC Worldwide has re-mastered these episodes to restore them to the fantastic quality that audiences expect from Doctor Who.
The stories recovered are The Enemy of the World (1967) and The Web of Fear (1968), both starring Patrick Troughton as the second Doctor.
The Enemy of the World, is the fourth six-part tale of Series 5 which first aired on the BBC in December 1967. Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 had been missing from the BBC archives.
Alongside Patrick Troughton who plays both the Time Lord and his antagonist (Ramon Salamander) are his companions Frazer Hines (Jamie) and Deborah Watling (Victoria).
Also recovered is the 1968 six-part story, The Web of Fear. Episodes 2 – 6 were feared lost forever but now episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6 have been recovered. Unfortunately, episode three is still missing but a restoration team has reconstructed this part of the story using a selection of the 37 images that were available from the episode along with the original audio which has been restored.
Also starring Patrick Troughton alongside Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling, The Web of Fear introduces Nicholas Courtney for the first time as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (who later returns as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart).
All episodes will be available to download exclusively from iTunes on 11 October. The Enemy of the World will also be available to pre-order exclusively on DVD from BBC Shop from 11 October for release on 22 November. The Web of Fear will be available on DVD from early 2014.
Phillip Morris says, “The tapes had been left gathering dust in a store room at a television relay station in Nigeria. I remember wiping the dust off the masking tape on the canisters and my heart missed a beat as I saw the words ‘Doctor Who’. When I read the story code I realised I’d found something pretty special.”
Fiona Eastwood, Director of Consumer Products, BBC Worldwide comments: “We are thrilled with the recent discovery of The Web of Fear and The Enemy of the World and we’re very happy to be launching re-mastered versions of these treasured episodes to fans as we celebrate the 50th year of Doctor Who.”
On the 23rd November 2013, Doctor Who celebrates 50 years since the very first episode, An Unearthly Child, aired on BBC television. A number of episodes from the first series of Doctor Who were lost as a result of BBC Archive space-saving measures and there are still 27 Doctor Who stories that are missing or have incomplete episodes.
The Doctor Who Mind Robber 